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Warp-Tune Cartoons!
Warp-Tune Cartoons! (known as The What a Cartoon! Show, The Cartoon Cartoon Show and The Warp-Tune Cartoons! Show) is an American animated television animation showcase series from Warner Bros. Animation, based on World Premiere Toons created by Fred Seibert for Cartoon Network. The shorts were produced by Hanna-Barbera, The Lego Group and/or Cartoon Network Studios; by the end of the run, a Cartoon Network Studios production tag was added to some shorts to signal they were original to the network. The project consisted of 48 short cartoons, intended to return creative power to animators and artists, by recreating the atmospheres that spawned the iconic cartoon characters of the mid-20th century. Each of the shorts mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist or creator. The name was retired by the network in 2003. Since their heyday, re-runs of the Cartoon Cartoons have continued to air on The Cartoon Cartoon Show (2005–2008) and Cartoon Planet (2012–2014). The series first aired on February 20, 1995, and the shorts were promoted as World Premiere Toons. During the original run of the shorts, the series was retitled to The What a Cartoon! Show and later to The Cartoon Cartoon Show until the final shorts aired on August 23, 2002. The project served as the launching point for multiple Cartoon Network animated television series, including The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005), Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Mike, Lu & Og, Sheep in the Big City, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, Codename: Kids Next Door, Grim & Evil, Megas XLR, Mixels, OK K.O.!: Let's Be Heroes, ''Steven Universe'', and ''Ben 10'' as well as Fox's Family Guy, ''The Simpsons'', ''Bob's Burgers'', Sega's ''Sonic the Hedgehog'','' Jay Ward's [[The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle|''The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle]], Mr. Peabody & Sherman's Imporbable History, Dudley-Do Right, and Viacom's ''South Park''.[citation needed] The series is influential for birthing a slew of original Cartoon Network hits and helping to revive television animation in the 1990s. Once it had several original shorts, those became the first Cartoon Cartoons (a collective term for retro Cartoon Network original series). From 2005 to 2008, The Cartoon Cartoon Show was revived as a block for reruns of older Cartoon Cartoons that had been phased out by the network. History = Fred Seibert became president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1992 and helped guide the struggling animation studio into its greatest output in years with shows like 2 Stupid Dogs and SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. Seibert wanted the studio to produce short cartoons, in the vein of the Golden Age of American animation. Although a project consisting of 48 shorts would cost twice as much as a normal series,1Seibert's pitch to Cartoon Network involved promising 48 chances to "succeed or fail", opened up possibilities for new original programming, and offered several new shorts to the thousands already present in the Turner Entertainment library. According to Seibert, quality did not matter much to the cable operators distributing the struggling network, they were more interested in promising new programs.2With Turner Broadcasting CEO Ted Turner and Seibert's boss Scott Sassa on board, the studio fanned out across the world to spread the word that the studio was in an "unprecedented phase", in which animators had a better idea what cartoons should be than executives and Hanna-Barbera supported them.34The company starting taking pitches in earnest in 1993 and received over 5,000 pitches for the 48 slots. The diversity in the filmmakers included those from various nationalities, race, and gender. Seibert later described his hope for an idealistic diversity as "The wider the palette of creative influences, the wider and bigger the audiences."4 Seibert's idea for the project was influenced heavily by Looney Tunes.4 Hanna-Barbera founders William Hanna and Joe Barbera, as well as veteran animator Friz Freleng, taught Seibert how the shorts of the Golden Age of American animation were produced. John Kricfalusi, creator of The Ren and Stimpy Show, became a teacher of sorts for Seibert and was the first person Seibert called while looking for new talent for the project.5As was the custom in live action film and television, the company did not pay each creator for the storyboard submitted and pitched. For the first time in the studio's history, individual creators could retain their rights, and earn royalties on their creations.5 While most in the industry scoffed at the idea, encouragement, according to Seibert, came from the cartoonists who flocked to Hanna-Barbera with original ideas.6 There were a large number of animated shorts created by several cartoonists such as: Genndy Tartakovsky(Dexter's Laboratory (2 cartoon shorts)), David Feiss ("No Smoking", which introduced the siblings Cow and Chicken), Van Partible ("Johnny Bravo" (2 cartoon shorts) and "Jungle Boy"), Craig McCracken ("Meat Fuzzy Lumkins," which introduced The Powerpuff Girls, and "Crime 101"), Butch Hartman (who did a number of shorts, including Pfish and Chip (2 shorts) and Gramps), John R. Dilworth (whose Oscar-nominated "The Chicken from Outer Space" introduced Courage the Cowardly Dog), Zac Moncrief ("Godfrey and Zeek"), and countless others. Also included were works from veterans like William Hanna ("Wind-Up Wolf" and "Hard Luck Duck"), Joseph Barbera (shorts featuring The Flintstones' Dino), and Ralph Bakshi (Malcolm and Melvin). Crew Broadcast History The first cartoon from the What a Cartoon! project broadcast in its entirety was "The Powerpuff Girls in Meat Fuzzy Lumkins", which made its world premiere on Monday, February 20, 1995, during a television special called the "World Premiere Toon In" (termed "President's Day Nightmare" by its producers, Williams Street). The special was hosted by Space Ghost and the cast of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and featured comic interviews and a mock contest with the creators of the various cartoons. The Toon-In was simulcast on Cartoon Network, TBS Superstation, and TNT. To promote the shorts, Cartoon Network's marketing department came up with the concept of "Dive-In Theater" in 1995 to showcase the cartoon shorts. The cartoons were shown at water parks and large municipal swimming pools, treating kids and their parents to exclusive poolside screenings on 9' x 12' movie screens. List of shorts Original Show